Italy invites itself to Montreal’s International Jazz Fest!

Marco Carilli, a Quebecker from Italy

I’m glad I did not check the Jazz Fest schedule, because if I had, I would probably have skipped Marco Carialli, an Italo-Quebecker singer from Montreal. When I go to music shows, I am always looking for something out of the ordinary. What coule be more ordinary in Montreal than the son of an Italian father?

Since I am no expert when it comes to italian music, I apprehensively dragged myself to the TD Scene of the place des Festivals along with the crowd.

Marco Carialli opened his show with a song that I felt was a little too reasonable for the Jazz festival. But he was just warming up; with the songs that followed, he proved that he deserved to be performing during the worle’s biggest Jazz festival.

Cultural diversity is not only express with foreign sounds. Body language helps a lot, as it was so well evidenced by the Italo-Quebecker singer who interacted a lot with the crowd and taught us how to sing with our hands just like he and his band did.

Denouncing Americanization… in America

All the songs were lively but the one that talked to me was « L’americano », a remake of « Tu vuò fà l’americano« . Swapping his Quebecker accent for an Italian one, Marco Carialli explained that the song « Tu vuò fà l’americano » was written by an Italian singer (Renato Carosone) who ridiculed young italians who were trying to be like James Dean or Marilyn Monroe. « Why are you trying to act like americanos? », a question he ironically asked before singing to a North American crowd.

But the singer was not in Canada, through his clowning, melodies and italian accent, he took us to Naples.

It’s always fascinating to observe some Montrealers who denounce the americanization of some cultures while behind their european behavior, they hide a North-American mentality, sitting deep inside their subconscious. America! There we find everything, even a little piece of Italy!